Trackey Installation Nightmare....

[Flight96]

Took the car in on Monday (June 30th) for the Trackey installation, left there at 8:30am and was told it would be done in a couple of hours. I went back at noon to pick it up. As soon as the servise writer saw me I knew there was a problem. He told me that they were having an issue programming the PCM. The key programmed fine but halfway through doing the PCM the program crashed and they were not able to get it back. The tech was on the phone with Ford Racing trying to figure it out. So they offered me a loaner until they had it fixed. He said it would probably take a couple of hours. So I got the loaner and went home and waited for them to call me. 5:30 that afternoon I called them to ask what was happenening and was told that Ford Racing couldn't figure it out and they were now dealing with Ford engineers. As july 1st is a holiday (Im in Canada) I was told that they would not be able to get it fixed until July 2nd.
10:30am July 2nd I get a call from the dealer saying they are working on it and were hoping to have it resolved in a couple of hours. 3:30 I get another call saying that they can't fix it. Basically I now have a 50 thousand dollar hot wheel. They now are taking out the PCM and have to send it to the USA for the Ford engineers and Ford Racing to re-program. But, because July 4th is a holiday in the US it probably would not get done until Monday or Tuesday (July 7 or 8th). By the time they send it back here and re-install it, I probably won't have my car back until July 11th.
So what was supposed be be a 1 hour computer flash has now turned into a 2 week affair and I still don't have my car. Driving a Ford Edge is not the same !!
Has anyone else had any issues with getting their Trackey installed ? Should I be concerned about any further damage that may come from this ?

 

[Brewmaster]

Don't worry about damage to the car. But, I'd worry about damage to your wallet if they try to charge you for all the hours they have wasted to get this programmed. You should not pay for more than two hours of their time, assuming they get it done.

Reasons why this failed could be that they did not use a strong/fast internet set up, or did not use Windows XP. These are absolutely necessary. If they didn't, then they didn't know what they were doing and you shouldn't have to pay for them learning how to do this. There should be no reason they would need to rip out your PCM and send it to Ford Racing.

I speak from my own unfortunate experience where the first dealership spent 6 hours attempting this and finally gave up. I sat in the damn show room the whole time on my 60th birthday on a nice sunny day. I was fit to be tied. I did not pay them a dime. The next day I went to another dealership which had experience in these installs and after spending an hour undoing the other dealership's screwup, the technician spent the normal one hour getting the TracKey programmed and off I went.

It is all worth it in my opinion. I love the TK and drive with it every day.

Best of luck. I hope it all works out for you.

 

[Flight96]

I have already made it known that I will not be paying for any of this, and they have agreed. So all of this, including the rental is on their dime.

 

[TymeSlayer]

You're a lot more patient than I. I would have had them undo what they did and drive it out with the silver key. Unless they royally hosed it up. History has shown that it's critical you go with a dealer that has installed TracKey before and therefore they should know what they're doing. I highly doubt that they could do any permanent damage to the car. Simply unload what they did and you should be able to drive out and find a more competent installer.

 

[Domestic Product]

Agree, find a different Dealer. When I did mine I checked around and found one that had done some. With that it was one tech in that dealer that did them. Good luck.

 

[WinterSucks]

The install instructions were pretty easy...

 

[jneary]

Trackey has been an installation issue for a lot of dealers. Mine required a whole day and taking the car back once in order to get it done right. I'm surprised that Ford set it up to be such a nightmare to program. I have been designing embedded systems for 30 years and to require a network connection to be stable is a recipe for disaster, especially if two programs cant be stored on the engine management system so that if the programming fails, it reverts to the initial program. Most systems are not designed with enough spare memory to do this to save money. Obviously, the cost of botched programming was lower than designing the system to be robust to programming failures.

Though this is a pain in the rear, you will really enjoy Trackey when it is finally done.

John

 

[Flight96]

You're a lot more patient than I. I would have had them undo what they did and drive it out with the silver key. Unless they royally hosed it up. History has shown that it's critical you go with a dealer that has installed TracKey before and therefore they should know what they're doing. I highly doubt that they could do any permanent damage to the car. Simply unload what they did and you should be able to drive out and find a more competent installer.

I tried to get them to reflash it back to factory. They couldn't do it. Thats when they got the Ford engineers involved. The car won't start at all now. Im so pissed off but there is nothing I can do now but hope it gets fixed. This is exactly why I love my 69. No Fu@#ing computers !

 

[Boss1601]

Think you're stuck at that dealer as they will want to get paid. A new dealer will want to get paid as well. Switching would most likely incur a double service cost to you/him. Maybe they can toss in a spare red key as a peace offering?

In the end trackey is totally worth it. I went to a dealer who had don't it a few times already. Went flawlessly except for the forgot to order the kit so it was a one day delay to do the work.

 

[Justin]

An sct handheld and aed tune no problems lol

Had trackey for a while it was ok not 300 + with install cool though




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Tucson 302]

An sct handheld and aed tune

Amen!

 

[Flight96]

Well I went today to get some things out of the car and they had my new Kenwood DNX691HD torn out of the car. They say they needed to take it out for the Trackey install! WTF !!! . They are still waiting for the PCM to get back from Ford....

 

[Boss1601]

That seems beyond reasonable. There is a member here that's a mustang mechanic. Has mechanic in his user name. He may have insight, but this seems very out of the ordinary. I feel for you. Must be very frustrating.

 

[Flight96]

Well I finally got the car back. The Trackey works great, very glad I got it installed. They didn't charge me anything for it, which is great ! But....my SYNC doesn't work now. When I push the button on the steering wheel I get nothing.... So it looks like I will be ripping apart my dash again tonight.

 

[LikeABauce302]

I wonder if the battery voltage dropped too low while they were reflashing your ECU.


When using an SCT handheld tuner, you have to be sure not to turn on any lights, roll down the windows, turn on the radio, etc while flashing. If battery voltage drops, it could cause the upload to stop and then it may be difficult to reflash back to stock and start over again. When I flashed my ECU with an AED tune, I made sure to have the battery hooked up to a trickle charger until the procedure was finished.

 

[1fastang]

I would try deleting phone from sync, then pair it again.
If that doesn't work pull fuse for sync, put the fuse back in and run vehicle for 5 minutes or more.
that does a reboot of the system. if you do a google search on fuse pull sync reboot you'll see plenty of info.
I had a problem with sync when my focus ST was new and did the reboot fuse pull and problem was solved.

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk now Free

 

[WinterSucks]

Or they might have disconnected the battery to get the idle to relearn and lost your settings.

 

[raptor]

I had my TK installed today, about an hour. Works great. My Sync doesn't work either....wait, I have a 12

 

[Flight96]

Looks like they didn't re-connect the 3.5mm audio cable. When I rip the dash apart, again, it should be an easy fix.